Singer Lauryn Hill Pleads Guilty to Not Paying Taxes

Lauryn Hill, a former member of the rap group the Fugees and a Grammy Award-winning singer, has pleaded guilty to failing to pay taxes for three years on more than $1.8 million in income.

Hill was charged earlier this month with three counts of failing to file tax returns for calendar years 2005, 2006, and 2007 (see Former Fugee Fails to File).

A few days later she wrote a lengthy explanation on a Tumblr blog, saying she had gone “underground … in order to build a community of people, like-minded in their desire for freedom and the right to pursue their goals and lives without being manipulated and controlled by a media protected military industrial complex with a completely different agenda.” However, she added that she hoped to straighten out her tax problems (see Lauryn Hill Explains Failure to Pay Taxes).

At Friday’s hearing at a federal court in Newark, N.J., Hill’s attorney Nathan Hochman said she planned to pay her back taxes, according to Billboard.com. Judge Michael Shipp postponed sentencing until November to give Hill an opportunity to pay her taxes. When the judge asked her what influenced her to plead guilty, she reportedly answered, “Indirectly, I’ve been advised my ability to speak out directly is for another time, at sentencing.”